How to take Nandroid Backup of any Android smartphone – 8 methods

Nandroid backup is considered as a standard directory structure for backing up a perfect mirror image of any Android phone. If you are one of those who want to try some complicated things like flashing third party custom ROMs, installing unofficial updates, kernels etc. then a complete backup must be taken first. This is necessary as implementing such complicated flashing is risky and may increase the possibility of soft bricking your phone. I always recommend our all Android users to make a complete backup of their Custom / Stock firmwares before executing any flashing process.

Such a backup is called as Nandroid backup which creates a mirror image of the current state of your firmware to an image file that includes a complete backup of the whole operating system of your device along with system data, user data, boot image, kernels, installed apps with data, contacts and even the accounts created. Thus a Nandroid backup can be used to restore your device to an exact state and thus proves as a life saver in case if something goes wrong.. Many people prefer apps like Titanium backup for taking regular backups but it should be noted that it no app can save every tiny detail of your phone as Nandroid backup does. In this article we’ll see some easy methods on how to take complete Nandroid backup and restore of any Android Phone.

Disclaimer:

Try at your own risk. We’ll not be held responsible if your phone gets damaged by following these methods.

Pre-Requisites:

Make sure your Android phone is charged at least upto 60%.

Your phone must be ROOTED. This is essential for all the mentioned methods.

How to take Nandroid Backup of Android Phone:

Method 1: Using Clockworkmod Recovery

Requirements:

A Rooted Android phone.

Clockworkmod (CWM) Recovery installed on phone.

Procedure:

Step 1: Switch off your phone and boot into CWM recovery using specific key combinations. Note that every phone has different booting procedure.

Note: In case of non touch CWM recovery using Volume keys to navigation and Power/Home key for selection. For touch based recovery, use the on-screen navigation.

Step 2: Once you enter CWM recovery, navigate to the backup and restore option and select it.

Step 3: On the next screen, select backup option.

Note: You may get more options than you’re seeing in this image. Don’t worry as this is because of modified version of the CWM recovery.

Step 4: As soon as you select it, the backup process will initiate. Be patient and wait for the process to complete. It’ll hardly take few minutes to complete.

Note: The backup will be saved in a folder named ‘Clockworkmod/backup’ on your device’s internal or external storage depending on what location you choose while creating the backup. But I recommend you to always take Nandroid backup on external storage as data present on internal need to be wiped sometimes. Later on you may copy the backup file on your computer for more safety.

Step 3: This will show up the Nandroid backup files which you’ve created earlier. So just select the one you want to restore.

Step 4: On the next screen, select the partitions you want to restore. From the list of saved Nandroid backup files, select the one you want to restore. As soon as you select it, the restore process will begin. It’ll last for few minutes.

Step 5: That’s it! Just Swipe to initiate the restoring process. It will take few minutes to complete.

Step 6: After complete restore, restart the phone by selecting Reboot System option.

Step 3: Then you need to configure various default setting options. First set the Backup Name. The default option of UTC Timezone Name labels the file according to the date on which the backup was performed.

Step 4: Next select the Backup type. By default it is set to Clockworkmod but if you’ve TWRP installed on your phone, you can set it to TWRP.

Step 5: Then you need to choose which partitions to backup with the Backup Mode option. By default it’s set to Normal which should be kept as it is.

Step 6: Now select the location where you want the Nandroid backup to be saved. I recommend to save the file on SD card.

Step 7: Then choose the Backup Retention option which allows you to set how many backups you’d like to keep before older backups are overwritten with latest ones. As Nandroid backup file is quite big I prefer to set this value to 1 or 2.

Step 8: Finally there are few more options for excluding dalvik caches or music files, but keep them as they are.

Step 9: After configuring everything as mentioned above, click on the Save button present at the top-right corner.

Step 10: As soon as you hit the Save button, the main screen of Online Nandroid Backup App will show up. Now tap on the Quick Backup option.

Step 11: A popup window will appear on which hit the Start Backup option.

Step 12: This will initiate the Nandroid backup process. You can even see the overall process through the status bar notifications.

This App is indeed one of the easiest way for taking a complete Nandroid backup.

Step 3: Then a popup window will appear asking you to activate Cloud service. You may select Google Drive, Dropbox or any medium that supports FTP transfers for activation of automatically uploading of backups.

Step 4: To initiate the Nandroid backup process, hit the magic wand button present on the app’s main interface.

Step 5: The backup process will begin. The app will back up the data, compress it, generate MD5 checksums and upload it to the cloud in the background.

Step 6: The app will keep you informed of the overall progress through the status bar notifications.

Note: For more configuration you can go to the app’s settings screen, take automatic backups, give backup name, do backup configuration, cloud configuration and much more.

Step 4: As you select it, a popup window will appear, from which select the Script/Executable option.

Step 5: Then select Su button at the top.

Step 6: Type alias name you want or leave as it is.

Step 7: Also type any arguments you want to pass, in the arguments box.

Step 8: After doing everything as mentioned click on the Save button on the top right corner.

Step 9: As you save it, you’ll see your Alias name in orange color.

Step 10: Now click on Run button to start the backup process. It’ll hardly take few minutes to complete.

Success

Great! You’ve successfully taken Nandroid backup and restore on your Android smartphone. Lastly if you face any difficulty while going through the mentioned methods then do inform me through the comments. I’ll be glad to help you. Thank You! 🙂